A Static Load Balancing Algorithm via Virtual Routing

Keywords

Abstract

We propose a novel load balancing algorithm for a static
load balancing problem that considers processing multi
class jobs in distributed networks. Our objective is to min
imize the mean response time of the jobs that arrive at the
system. We formulate the problem as a constrained non
linear minimization problem with job-flow rate, commu
nication delays, and processing delays, as constraints. Us
ing a systematic methodology, we transform the formulated
problem into an equivalent virtual routing problem and pro
pose an algorithm, referred to as Load Balancing via Vir
tual Routing (LBVR). Thus, we establish a correspondence
between the load balancing problem and the routing prob
lem. We show that the proposed algorithm has several in
teresting properties and guarantees to deliver a super-linear
rate of convergence in obtaining an optimal solution, when
ever it exists. With rigorous experiments we test the perfor
mance of our algorithm in terms of its rate of convergence
and quality of solution.